‘You’re Cordially Invited’ Director Nicholas Stoller

Nicholas Stoller has had a hand in making some of the funniest and most successful comedies of the 21st century. He’s the director of popular hits like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Neighbors; as a writer, he’s also contributed to movies ranging from The Muppets to Captain Underpants to Sex Tape.

In the last decade, though, Stoller’s worked more and more frequently in television, creating or co-creating shows like Platonic on Apple TV+ and Goosebumps on Disney+. Since 2017, he’s only directed one film, the Billy Eichner romantic comedy Bros. 

To a casual observer, it seems like the TV world is becoming more receptive to funding sharp, character-based comedies than movies are. When I put that question to Stoller, he didn’t necessarily disagree.

“I mean, we’re finishing the second season of Platonic right now. My wife [Francesca Delbanco] and I do that together,” Stoller told me during a Zoom chat earlier this week. “And I remember, Seth [Rogen, series star, and also the star of Stoller’s films Neighbors and Neighbors 2] during the first season was like ‘You know, a number of years ago, a slightly more high concept version of this could have been a movie.’ But it just isn’t the business model right now, for whatever reason. So that stuff has gravitated to TV.”

Stoller’s latest project brings him back to the world of film — but not to movie theaters. The very funny You’re Cordially Invited stars Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon as two Type-A personalities who discover that they’ve each booked a loved one’s wedding at the same beautiful but tiny venue on the same date. Chaos and big laughs ensue.

The film is available right now on Amazon’s Prime Video. The degree to which I laughed at the film watching it at home made me reflect on how much I miss seeing movies like You’re Cordially Invited in theaters. After a brief chat about the year’s Oscar movies (we agreed on The Brutalist and Challengers, two movies that would then come up again during our discussion about screenwriting) Stoller and I got into his latest project and how he tailored his script to his talented stars, and an update on the state of movie comedies in 2025.

READ MORE: 10 Movie Comedies That Are Surprisingly Deepe

I’m guessing a lot of people’s first question is about why you wanted to make this movie or where the idea came from, but I am more interested to know specifically what shocking, traumatic incident happened at a wedding that you witnessed or perhaps accidentally inflicted that made you want to make this movie?

You know it’s funny. None of that is autobiographical at all. It’s really the two characters, the core emotional experience the two characters are going through, that I have connections with. Like I have three daughters; Will’s character has a daughter. He’s very sad that she’s growing up. Like, that kind of thing I can certainly identify with.

And Reese, her complex relationship with her family; she’s really close to her sister. I have a brother and there’s elements there I related to. But the two weddings being double booked is really just a way to explore the emotional experiences these characters are going through.

When I try to think of funny wedding stories, I really come up short. I don’t really have much in the way of crazy wedding stories. I wish I did. Everything that happens in the movie I made up.

I’m curious if you have any sort of guiding principles for crafting comedies. I was looking back at your movies over the weekend. They’re all very different stories, but structurally I see similarities. There are very few heroes and villains. I see a lot of rivals; stories where I like both people who are kind of butting heads. I’m wondering if there’s something you particularly like about making movies with that structure?

Yeah, I think a good comedy — or not even a comedy, a good story — is about rivals. We were just talking about The Brutalist; that is a rivalry story between Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce. It creates a lot of conflict, which is what you need for dramas or comedies.

Challengers is another one we were just talking about. That’s a great rivalry. I think that rivalry allows you to explore a lot of emotional experiences and also tell a story filled with tension that makes the viewer want to keep watching it. So I think that’s where that comes from.

But that’s very astute. I don’t believe in villains. I don’t think villains are interesting. Or rather, the best villains are really human and relatable and you understand where they’re coming from. So particularly with comedies and the kinds of movies I make, early on I figured out … I remember in the early 2000s there would be, like, Bradley Cooper’s character in Wedding Crashers, who was just a jerk. There was nothing redeeming about him. And I’ve never met anyone like that. Even the jerkiest people, I always end up having a quiet conversation with them and it turns out they’re literally just really shy and don’t want to talk to anyone.

People laugh at what’s relatable and honest. When that’s what you’re laughing at, what’s relatable and honest, you’re relating to it. For all those reasons, I don‘t really tend to have heroes. It’s much funnier to watch Jason Segel have a nervous breakdown than it is to have a heroic guy get the girl or whatever.

Absolutely. Did you write this with Will and Reese in mind?

Yeah, I had the idea of a double-booked destination wedding years ago, but I had nothing else. I knew it was a commercial idea so I kind of kept it on the back shelf. Then a few years ago I thought, “Oh it would be fun to make a movie for Will and Reese.” And not just fun, I was dying to do a movie for the two of them, I’m obsessed with both of them. And I thought “Oh that idea is big enough to support the two of them.” And I built it out and then pitched them the idea, and they both said yes and then I developed it for them.

You’ve directed a lot of good comedic leading men through the years. When you’re conceiving this role for Will — obviously I’m a huge Will Ferrell fan — are you thinking about things that he does uniquely well that you want to have him doing in your movie? Is there a lane where if you put him there, you know he’s going to score?

Because Will looks like an everyman a bit, he then has this loose cannon quality. But you also know it all will be fine. He seems like kind of a loose cannon where anything could happen, but it’s also gonna be okay. I also think that with comedy people — and this is true of Reese too — that if the two characters can yell at each other and it’s funny, then it’s fine. If the two characters yell at each other and it’s like your parents are having a fight and you want to go in the other room, then it’s not fine. So that’s a big part of it too. And Reese is really good at yelling; she’s so funny doing that. And, yeah, Will has that loose cannon quality that’s amazing.

Then the thing I hadn’t seen him do is I think this is a bit more of an emotional role than he normally would do. He’s made some of the best comedies of all time, like Talladega Nights and Anchorman. But I wouldn’t say they had very emotional scenes. And I know I wanted there to be these emotional scenes with him and Geraldine. And he really knocked that out of the park. He has that scene at the end where he apologizes to his daughter, and it is so sweet and sad and also so funny, where he’s talking about missing having sex with his wife.

[laughs]

It’s so shocking, and so funny, but also I’m always on the verge of tears when that scene happens.

That’s a very funny scene. And not to be an old person going “Back in my day!” but … back in my day I feel like that scene and this movie as a whole would have killed in a theater. And purely as an observer of the industry and a fan of movie comedies, I feel like I’m seeing so few comedies in theaters. As a guy who’s in the trenches making these things, why do you think we get fewer movie comedies from the bigger studios?

There was just a comedy that came out that Issa Ray produced [One of Them Days] that just did well in theaters. I think comedies will always and can always work in a theater. It’s just that the bullseye for what needs to work in a theater has gotten smaller and smaller. And so the studios, understandably, are not willing to risk it as much as they used to.

This movie is a great theatrical experience, and no one will have that experience. It is going to be an experience everyone has at home, which kind of sucks — but it’s also a great experience to watch with a bunch of people at home, which is nice.

But yeah, it is a bummer to me because I do love watching comedies in a big theater. It’s fun. It’s fun to bond by laughing at this big thing. But I just think it’s because now movies either need to be an event, like a visual effects event like a Marvel kind of movie, to get people to come to theaters — at least this is the thinking with studios — or it needs to be a cultural event like Barbie or something like that, where it’s one of the biggest brands on Earth being turned into a movie. That’s the risk that studios are willing to bear. Otherwise, it’s just easier to put them on these services.

Also, the business models are different. A lot of studios wanted to make this movie, but Amazon made the most compelling offer. And they were awesome, but their business model is not a theatrical business model. And so we knew that going in. They couldn’t have been better, cooler, more collaborative partners on the movie. And at the end of the day, I was like “You know what? Movies spend 95 percent of their life on streaming or DVD. They’re not in theaters.” So that’s kind of where I landed after all of that.

It’s certainly better that it exists than it doesn’t exist.

Exactly.

But you hit upon it when you say, it’s great to see a funny movie with a lot of people in a room. I know you’ve been working more in TV lately — is that because that world is just more receptive to making comedies than the film world?

I think so. And honestly, I think TV has a little bit cannibalized [movie comedy]. On Platonic we do hard comedy, we do set pieces, we do all the stuff that I would do in a movie, but we’re doing it for Apple TV. And so if someone could turn it on at home, it’s easier to do that than it is to go to the movie theater.

I do think You’re Cordially Invited would’ve worked in a theater. But again, it’s not what it was set up to be. So from the beginning I was like “Let’s see what this experience is like.”

There is one nice thing about it: It removes any pressure about box office. When a movie comes out, you’re just thinking about box office. And then no one remembers what happened except for you. That’s the funny thing. Everyone’s like “Oh Sarah Marshall was this giant hit.” It wasn’t. It did well. I mean, now that would be the biggest hit of all time. At the time, it did fine. It was looked on as the younger sibling of Superbad, or whatever. But people don’t remember it that way. So removing that box office stigma or experience is only good. [laughs]

Before we have to go, you mentioned being the father of three daughters who are getting older. I’ve got two daughters, and I am really starting to feel those feelings you were talking about and that you put into Will’s character in the movie. Any advice for a dad who is just getting into that time you’re talking about?

How old are your daughters?

They’re seven and nine.

You just have accept the change. Life is change. A lot of this movie is about how life changes and me not being able to deal with it. At the end [of You’re Cordially Invited] when you see the montage of Geraldine growing up, every time I start to cry. And those are all Geraldine’s photos and stuff. Every time I watch that I’m like “Why did I do this to myself??” [laughs]

You’re Cordially Invited is now streaming on Prime Video.